The results of the BC election yesterday come as no surprise, although I am thoroughly disappointed in the results of the referendum on electoral reform.
That said, I am not particularly a fan of the STV system on the ballot. I think that the opposition movement made a lot of good points about the downsides of this proposed system.
THAT said, it’s still so much better than our completely skewed FPTP system that, had I lived in British Columbia, I would have voted for the change.
Which brings me to my main point here. What is the proper means to discuss and achieve (assuming that the majority agree on the need) a change in our electoral system?
I believe we need a 2 referendum approach.
First off, there are many people, I think the majority, who understand how wonky our existing First-Past-The-Post system is or at least agree on it’s weaknesses within a 2 minute conversation. This system in which parties can achieve majority governments with less than a majority of votes, and potentially (yes, it has happened) with fewer votes than the opposition party does NOT give us the government we want.
So the first question to be asked in a referendum is, “Do you prefer our existing FPTP voting system or would you prefer a more proportional system.”
This simple to explain as the second option merely means that the makeup of the legislature would reflect the popular vote.
You could even add a question on there such as, “Do you think it is important to maintain an element of local representation?” This is for information purposes to be used later.
Assuming this first referendum passes, and I think it would pass by a large margin, they we should commit to changing the system. The citizens assembly would then propose their top 2 systems (without releasing which was 1 and 2) and hold a second referendum to choose. But at this point, FPTP would be off the table. It would be done no matter what.
Note: You could do this with multiple voting systems on the ballot as long as the vote was to rank in order of preference, but this is just confusing the issue so I would not recommend it.
This way people could argue the merits of the two systems on their face and you would not have people who want reform falsely appearing to support FPTP.
Unfortunately, with the results in BC yesterday, proponents of FPTP will be arguing that people prefer it over electoral reform, and I think this is very likely not true.
